Man rams car into headquarters of Spain’s ruling party

MADRID (Reuters) – A unemployed Spaniard who said he was a ruined businessman rammed a car containing gas cylinders into the headquarters of Spain’s ruling People’s Party in Madrid on Friday, triggering a police alert, official spokesmen said.

No one was injured in the incident, an emergency services spokesman said.

Police cordoned off the central Madrid street where the PP building stands and shut down nearby metro stations. Bomb disposal experts were examining the car as a precaution, a police spokeswoman said.

The car crashed into the glass front of the building at high speed, entered the lobby and nearly hit a cleaning lady, former Madrid mayor Esperanza Aguirre told a radio station.

Police arrested the 37-year-old man from the eastern province of Teruel.

Members of a bomb squad walk through a police cordon outside the headquarters of Spain’s ruling People’s Party in Madrid on December 19 – REUTERS

“He said he was a businessman who sought revenge for current political policy,” a government spokesman said.

The car carried two cylinders of butane gas, the government spokesman said. It also contained two bags of industrial fertiliser, El Pais reported.

Spain has the second-highest unemployment rate in Europe after Greece and nearly half of the 5.4 million jobless have been out of work for more than two years, meaning they can no longer claim benefits.